Product meta-modelling: an approach for linking product models

One of the objectives of concurrent engineering is to ensure the management of product data during all its life cycle. So we need some tools able to organize and support the representation of a lot of data. As a single model could not fulfil the specificity of each design phase, we use two product models and define the link between their formalisms (including data types, structure, and evolution laws). For having a formal and intelligible mapping of the type of data and of the evolution laws of both models, two static meta-models have been defined. These meta-models use the UML class diagram.